Flemish Energy Minister Bart Tommelein grants an investment subsidy for the first time to a project of floating solar panels. Floating PV wille be granted a maximum of 2 million euros.

“As a government, we support new technologies until they are ready for the market,” explains Tommelein. “This project with floating solar panels combines a number of innovations that we would like to see tested. We expect a higher efficiency of floating solar panels because they can rotate with the sun and because they have solar cells on both sides.”

Floating PV will build 5 hectares of floating solar panels on the ponds of the sand extraction company Sibelco in Dessel. These are solar panels that integrate different techniques: solar tracking, which means that the panels rotate with the sun, an adaptive slope, double-sided solar panels and active cooling.

Source: Solar Magazine, 22 October 2018